Family:
I have a wife of seven years and two boys, ages 6 and 2. (That's the
children, my wife is older than that. . .really.)

Pets:
When people ask me if I have a dog, I used to say “yes, a tabby”
because I used to have a cat that acted just a like a dog. (Run to
greet me at the door, jump int the car with us when going places, you
name it.) But he disappeared a year and a half ago and I haven't
recovered.

Regardless, I still
have two other cats and I name all of my pets using Elvish. (Elena and
Palin) My wife drew the line at naming my children using Elvish. It was
probably for the best.

Religion:
Roman Catholic. Despite this I hang out with a lot of Pagans. In fact,
I know of three couples where a Roman Catholic married a Pagan, and we
joke about doing a book called “Pagan Women and their Catholic
husbands”. Regardless, I am very happy being a Catholic and have no
conversions to paganism on the horizon.

Political
party/affiliation: None. I don't really like the ideas
of parties as a whole, but understand their place in politics. I am
relatively conservative with lots of liberal ideas.

Education: I have a
degree in computer science and English literature.

Hobbies/Activities:
I hike and camp, play basketball (despite my size and build) and play
the piano. My family are really as close to professional hikers/campers
as you can get but I never really went down that road. There is very
little I enjoy more then basketball (even gaming). I started playing
the piano to sooth my youngest son when he was upset and have been
doing it regularly ever since. I write up my own pieces.

Community
service: I have a never ending goal to reform
anti-social gamers into respectable members of society, but it’s a lot
like working on world peace. I do give blood regularly and work for a
non-profit (even if that non-profit is a health insurance company.)

What is
the most frightening thing you've ever done? The most
frightening gaming thing I ever did was decide to run a LARP at the
local convention despite having never played in a LARP previously.

But that really wasn’t
half as frightening as the time I decided to audition for a play. I’m
not an actor, but I had made a resolution that if someone was going to
be showing “Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead”, that I would
audition. So, one winter my theater friend comes over and tells me that
the local college is putting on R&G and that auditions are open
to anyone. So I had to go down and audition with a bunch of college
kids who did this regularly and hope to get a part. That’s scary. It
took all my willpower just to walk out of the door of my house, and
sitting in the mostly empty auditorium waiting for the auditions to
start was like a bad nightmare where you don’t have any clothes on.

But I got a part,
despite having to explain to the director that I had never acted
before. So it was worth it. Facing your fears usually is.

Which of
your accomplishments are you the most happy with? I
completed a marathon a couple of years ago, which was a huge life goal.
But it is always hard to vote against your kids. Mine are pretty cool.
Although it was a great accomplishment to survive my second son’s head
to toe eczema at four months old, where he would scream all day and
then not sleep at night. Try that for a month and you find out how
strong your marriage really is.

What is
your favorite word? I’ll go with three: Grainflail,
Thanoff, Khurbul. These all come from my Harnmaster days. Say them
together, like a mantra...

What is
your favorite time of year, and why? Summer. Because
there are only three months you can go hiking in the Beartooth
Mountains (my second home) and those are the months.

What is
your most prized physical possession? I lose things, so
it is hard. I could say my Chaos Orb (Magic the Gathering Card), but
only because it represents all that was right with the concept of the
game and at the same time all that is wrong with how the game is played
today (because it is banned.) And because I can get fanatic magic
players to drool over it and then riffle shuffle it without a protector
in front of their faces.

But really, I have this
red fleece pullover jacket with holes from fire embers that is way to
big for me that I would have a hard time losing, even though it is so
worn out I don’t wear it to work unless I want to look like a homeless
person.

Did you
have any embarassing nicknames as a kid? Some girls used
to call me Fred. But it wasn’t really all that embarrassing. Most of my
nicknames came from college and even then they were used sparingly:
Elder God (my position in dorm hierarchy), Red Sheep (due to my
aforementioned red fleece), and Fearless Leader for no real good reason.

What makes
you cry? Anything that can get me emotionally drawn in.
Otherwise known as a good story. Some things (like fantasy movies) I am
suckers for. I even cried during Narnia, which tells you how much a
sucker I am for a good story. The ultimate would be the death of Sturm
during the Dragonlance chronicles. (Hope I didn’t ruin that for
anyone.) I have NEVER managed to read through the “Battle of Pelennor
Fields” (from Return of the King) without going to tears, even the 10th
or fifteenth time.

What are
three things you can't live without? GMing – my brain
goes numb without the creative process. And sunlight, much to the
chagrin of my theater tech friends.

If you
could have one superpower, which power would you pick?
This is easy. Shapechanging. And I’d get myself into a lot of trouble,
too. But that’s why I role-play – so that I can try out other
identities without actually getting myself into trouble.

What did
you want to be when you grew up? Herpatologist (Reptile
Scientist). Still not sure why that never happened – somehow I ended up
with a computer degree and I don’t even like computers.

What is
your favorite mode of transportation? Walking. I walk to
work every day, I hike a lot. It lets you think.

If you
could pick any other time period to live in, which would
it be, and why? The past – when things were simpler
(okay, not
really) and I could own a sword and actually have it be useful instead
of
a decorative ornament for my wall.

Tell us about your favorite RPG
character that you've ever played. I will go with Gusar,
my insane Paladin of Larani. We played in Harnworld
and used 2nd Ed. AD&D while I was in
college. I played him once a week for four years straight, maybe
missing a couple of sessions the whole time. So there a lots of good
stories. . .so hard to pick which ones. . .

Gusar was convinced he
couldn't be killed, that his Goddess would not allow it, so he was
frighteningly overconfident in any combat situation.

One time, the characters
were given the task of ridding a castle of a horde of viking invaders
that had moved in. Our plan was to dress up like gods and scare them
off. So all made up to look frightening, Gusar strides through the
gates to meet the Viking warlord in battle. Yelling things about the
futility of facing gods while the clerics dowsed the castle with
lightning, Gusar pulls out his sword and immeditally fumbles, throwing
it away. No problem for Gusar, he pulls out his bastard sword. And
fumbles it away too. But that's okay – because he also carries a
dwarven battle-axe with all these runes on it. But it doesn't last
either, a third fumble sends it bouncing away into the courtyard. So,
still facing the warlord, he makes an impassioned speech about “not
needing such tools to deal with the likes of you” and proceeds to beat
the snot out of the Viking with his bare hands. I think that was better
then the plan.

One more story –
Eventually Gusar figured out that even though he was immortal, his
companions weren't. So, upon a dangerous quest to infiltrate an entire
fighting order of evil female paladins, Gusar slips out of camp early
at dawn to deal with them himself, because it is too dangerous to bring
the rest of the party along. So he walks up to the gate and starts
yelling at them about being cowards and vermin. They see this lone
Knight and get an idea. They open the gates, tell Gusar that they will
set up a challenge match with their greatest warrior. Gusar accepts,
they set him up in the dungeon (not taking his weapons mind you,
because he promised not to start any fights) and prepare a ritual
killing masquerading as a duel. Meanwhile, the rest of the party
figures out what Gusar did, sneaks into the castle during the
preparations for the battle, getting ready for what is to come. Now
Gusar, sitting in the dungeons, knows that his quest is actually to
convert this evil champion to his Goddess, a task he has no real
experience at accomplishing, but he read a few books on this courtly
love thing, so he comes up with a plan. They put him in the arena with
the champion, and he promptly kneels down in front of her and proposes
marriage. At the same time, the party manages to kill the high cleric
and Grandmistress in one round. With chaos erupting all around, the
confused Champion agrees, and Gusar and her run off. Of course, Gusar
has to actually marry her, but that's another tale.

What are
your favorite RPGs?Rolemaster is
my bread and butter game, and game of choice. But I really do go out of
my way to play other things. I am very fond of Over The Edge
and Harnmaster. I consider my copy of Primal
Order as the most important RPG in my collection. I also
have to give nods to 7th Sea and Legend
of the Five Rings (at least for setting purposes.) I own
every Birthright source book ever produced, have
an extensive collection of MERP modules and enjoy
the times I get to play Tales from the Floating Vagabond.

What was
your first RPG session like? What game did you play, and
where did you play it? There was this red box. We made some characters.
We all got killed by the carrion crawler under the broken gate. We made
some more characters. They also got killed by the carrion crawler under
the gate. We made another set, we added my friend’s brother, so we
would have a chance against the carrion crawler. It killed us anyways.
We decided I had better play a cleric. This time we made it.

What was
your WORST RPG session like? Oh gosh, the selection, the
selection. Was it my encounter with Timmy the power gamer? Or the time
I stopped GMing and just duct taped my arm, ripped it off and did it
again? Or one of my RPGA sessions gone bad? Or the time the player
decided NOT to open the secret door and save the rest of the group but
to run away and let them all die? Or the session where we spent three
and a half hours of combat with only one character conscious? I think
I've said enough.

Who is
your all-time favorite person to game with? I'll vote
for my friend Eric Kolman, who I grew up role-playing with and pretty
much always plays the same character. It is a very fun character! But I
will say that I have gamed with a very large number of excellent
role-players and feel very fortunate every time a meet another one.

Do you
have anything gaming-related to plug? Come visit my
brand new website – www.blackshieldgaming.com
– which is mainly a gaming blog and place for Montana gamers to
organize events. But I have at least one of my gaming resources ready
(The character creation worksheet) and will be adding others throughout
the year.